Hundreds of Allegiant Air passengers stranded at airport

Mechanical problems left hundreds of Allegiant Air customers bound for California stranded at Honolulu Airport Saturday and Friday.

According to airline spokeswoman Jessica Wheeler, a “mechanical issue” with an Allegiant flight from Fresno, Calif., to Honolulu resulted in a backup that affected flights from Honolulu to Fresno and Fresno to Honolulu.

“We’re working diligently to get passengers out as quickly as possible,” Wheeler said by phone this evening.

However, Allegiant passengers left waiting at the airport said delays and cancellations have affected multiple flights heading out of Honolulu, not just those headed to Fresno.

The Allegiant website indicated that today's flights from Honolulu to Fresno; Stockton, Calif., and Boise, Idaho, had been delayed or cancelled.

Thanh Dang said her scheduled flight from Honolulu to Stockton was delayed from 1:45 p.m. today to 5:30 p.m. and then again to 11:40 p.m.

“All they said was that there was something wrong with the plane,” Dang said by phone.

Sergio Caledon arrived at the airport at 9 a.m. Friday for a flight to Fresno that was scheduled to depart two hours later.

“We were delayed three times before they gave us an $8 meal voucher, which doesn’t buy anything in the airport,” Caledon said. “At 6:30 p.m., after we’d been there all day, they gave a voucher for the Ala Moana Hotel. That was nice, but they didn’t provide shuttle service there so we had to spend $35 going back and forth.”

Caledon returned this morning as instructed only to be left waiting again.

“It was delay, delay, delay,” he said. “Same process.”

Around 5 p.m., Caledon said he and his fellow passengers were finally allowed to board a plane, only to be told a half-hour later that the plane could not leave due to mechanical problems.

As of 6 p.m., Caledon was still waiting to see if a promised 6:30 p.m. flight was going to materialize.